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The Monkey Folk

Name: The Monkey Folk
Director: Gérard Vienne
Released: 1989
Duration: 85 min

Representation Score

4.7/10

Fair

1989

Director

Gérard Vienne

Runtime

85 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

The Monkey Folk is a traditional natural history documentary that emphasizes biological observation over social commentary. Its main strength lies in its globalized cinematography, capturing simian life across various regions such as Brazil and Ethiopia. However, the film lacks the narrative structure to explore human multi-layered identities. Since the subjects are non-human, the documentary remains neutral regarding gender, culture, and social hierarchies, providing a scientific rather than a social perspective. Ultimately, the film serves as an educational survey of the animal kingdom without challenging human cultural or systemic power dynamics.

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Category Breakdown

Does The Monkey Folk have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film doesn't include explicit stories about human LGBTQ+ identities. Instead, it focuses on observing primate social structures, which can be non-traditional in terms of relationships.

How does The Monkey Folk portray gender?

Fair

The documentary focuses on non-human subjects within a scientific context. It neither reinforces nor challenges human gender hierarchies, maintaining a neutral stance.

How racially and ethnically diverse is The Monkey Folk?

Fair

The film showcases a broad range of locations, including Ethiopia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Brazil. This global perspective avoids a narrow Eurocentric view of nature.

How does The Monkey Folk represent religion and culture?

Fair

The documentary follows a traditional educational format, presenting a neutral view of human cultural and religious institutions without critiquing systemic power structures.

Does The Monkey Folk include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no depiction of neurodivergence or physical disabilities in the film. It solely focuses on the behavior of wild simian species.

Present on Screen

The film offers a wide geographical scope, featuring footage from Ethiopia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Brazil.
The documentary extensively covers over a hundred different simian species.

Limited or Absent

The film lacks intentional engagement with human-centric social identities or multi-layered narratives.
The scientific framework avoids any critique of human cultural or systemic power dynamics.

Official Synopsis

This comprehensive documentary explores the lives and behavior in the wild of over a hundred different simians species. Footage from such diverse places as Ethiopia, Japan, Sri Lanka and Brazil brings macaques, baboons, monkeys, orangutans and many other relatives of humankind to the screen. Because of its length and extensive coverage of its subject, it is of particular interest to those who are already keenly interested in its subject matter.

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